Novels Now

It was just after dark in a lonely reach of the South Pacific. As we sped westward, the ocean floor was a mile below us - or it was supposed to be. Like when microphone feedback suddenly fills an auditorium until you must cover your ears, a deafening shrill exploded through the boat. […]

Popularity: 49% [?]

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An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination
By Elizabeth McCracken
Completed November 5, 2008
I think there’s an old saying that you should never have to bury your child. Outliving my kids ranks number one in things “I don’t want to happen,” but sadly, there are parents who face this reality every day.
While some parents lose […]

Popularity: 55% [?]

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North to Alaska the land rises gently from the Arctic Ocean and an ice pack that extends over the pole and beyond. South of Patagonia, it plunges into the Drake Passage at Cape Horn. Six hundred miles away is Antarctica. Start at one of these ends of the earth - if only in your mind […]

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221 pages
A couple of years ago(before I had a blog) I read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. While I learned a lot from that book and I enjoyed Ehrenreich’s sense of humor quite a bit, I was left feeling sad and a little irritated at the premise that […]

Popularity: 27% [?]

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A child dies in this book: a baby. A baby is stillborn. You don’t have to tell me how sad that is: it happened to me and my husband, our baby, a son. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 6-
Author Elizabeth McCracken lived briefly in France, with her husband, […]

Popularity: 24% [?]

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My Name is Number 4: A True Story from the Cultural Revolution by Ting-Xing Ye
Pages: 230
Finished: Oct. 26, 2008
First Published: September 2008
Genre: YA, memoir
Rating: 4/5
Reason for Reading: Received a Review Copy from the publisher. Also qualifies for the Canadian Challenge.
First sentence:
The morning of my exile to the prison farm arrived, a characteristic November day in […]

Popularity: 27% [?]

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Resistance: A Woman’s Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert
Translated by Barbara Mellor
Pages: 270 + 100pgs of extraneous material (Afterward, index, etc.)
First Published: 1946, 1st English translation Sept. 2, 2008
Genre: memoir, WWII
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
Rumours are flying, all flatly contradictory, but it seems clear that the Germans are advancing on all fronts.
Comments: […]

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Fun Cat Memoir for Cat Lovers
This is Chloe Anne’s memoir, written for her by her mother Valerie Oblath.
Poor Chloe Anne, her family is moving and gave her to the Humane Society. She lives in a little cage until her new mom and author, Valerie Oblath adopts her. Chloe Anne loves her new home and cat […]

Popularity: 22% [?]

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The Loveliest Woman in America: A Tragic Actress, Her Lost Diaries, and her Granddaughter’s Search for Home by Bibi Gaston
Pages: 335
First Published: June 10, 2008
Genre: nonfiction, memoir, biography
Rating: 3/5
First sentence:
For forty-three years, all I knew was that Rosamond was beautiful and that she had killed herself.
Comments: This is the story of Rosamond Pinchot told through […]

Popularity: 22% [?]

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We must set our children free from our adult agendas and our frenetic, goal-oriented pace. The path that we have accepted for ourselves is the wrong path for children. Children do need a foundation upon which to grow and children do need their parents. They need to belong to a community, not an interest group. […]

Popularity: 20% [?]

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